Barri Bryan - Return to Paradise.html

by Return to Paradise (NCP) (lit)

  After several successive tugs, the calf's shoulders were born. Cody gave a sigh of relief. "She's going to make it."

  Belle pulled her shirt tail from her jeans, and wiped mucus from the calf's nose. "One more pull should do it."

  Kate dropped her hands and watched the grisly procedure with grim fascination. The cow bawled in pain, as with one last yank of the rope, Cody pulled the calf free, then wiped his bloody hands down the sides of his jeans.

  The new born calf stood on wobbly legs, and took a few faltering steps. "I thought for a while we would lose both of them." Cody wiped his arm across his face. "Is this her first calf?"

  Belle shrugged. "I don't know. The cow belongs to our neighbor."

  Cody turned to Kate. "Fetch me some iodine, if you have any."

  Puzzled, Kate asked, "What?"

  "Iodine, to disinfect the calf's navel."

  Kate brought the first aid kit she kept in her car. "Do you have to do this every time a cow gives birth to a calf?" After seeing what had just transpired, Kate wondered if being a rancher was such a good idea, after all.

  Cody took a long swig from the glass of water Belle had brought him, and grimaced. "Gippy." He handed Belle the glass. "Cows drop calves, Kate. If they drop them on the open range, there's usually no problem. But in a place like this, a calf could pick up an infection." He painted around the calf's naval cord with liberal amounts of iodine.

  "Where's the afterbirth?" Kate asked.

  Cody put the calf to the cow's udder. "That won't come along for six, maybe twelve hours."

  "Kate's a city girl." Belle wiped her hands on her shirt tail. "She's got a lot to learn about cows."

  "Amen to that." Kate sat down on the porch.

  "Your neighbor needs to know this cow had trouble dropping her calf." Cody slipped his arms into his shirt, "Chances are, she'll have trouble next time. He may want to cull her from his herd."

  "I'll make sure he knows." Kate shut her eyes against the thought of having to face Hank Sinclair again. "There are a great many things I need to tell Mr. Sinclair."

  "What are we going to do about Mr. Sinclair running his cows on this place?" Belle sat down on the porch beside Kate.

  Before Kate could think of an answer, a man on horseback came riding over the rise and galloped into the yard.

  Kate's expression moved from thoughtful to irritated. "That's Billy Jack. I wonder what he wants."

  "Take it easy." Belle patted Kate's arm. "Whatever it is, we can handle it."

  The rider dismounted and walked toward Kate. "Evening, Miss McClure," He doffed his ten-gallon hat and nodded toward Belle and Cody, "and y'all."

  "What do you want?" Agitation made Kate's voice sharp.

  Billy Jack swallowed a gulp of air before he answered. "I came to get that cow." He pointed to the cow and calf standing in the yard. "We thought you all would be gone by now."

  Kate fought to keep from giving way to the anger that rose inside her. "Did you?" she asked with thinly veiled sarcasm. "And who, exactly, is we?"

  "Mr. Sinclair, Miss Catherine, and Jake, and me. Everybody over at Circle S."

  "Well, why don't you take your cow, and the calf Cody and Mamma just delivered, and go back and tell everybody at Circle S that we are still here?"

  Smugly, Billy Jack informed her, "Mr. Sinclair called his lawyer. He's going to get this whole damn mess straightened out."

  Somehow, Kate knew that declaration was an echo of words that came directly from Hank Sinclair's mouth. "On second thought, you can't have the cow. Tell Mr. Sinclair if he wants her, he can come for her himself."

  "Mr. Sinclair won't like that, Ma'am." Billy Jack twisted his hat around in his hands. "He's going to be as mad as an old wet hen. He said for me to bring that cow home. I don't cross him. If you knew him like I do, you wouldn't either."

  Memories washed over Kate. Recollections of another man at another time, in another place, who delivered an ultimatum, then took what he wanted. And she had let him get away with it. These circumstances were different, yet amazingly similar. "Are you afraid to tell Mr. Sinclair what I said?"

  "I don't really cotton to the idea, but I reckon I don't have much choice." Billy Jack set his hat on his head, and gave it a little tap.

  "You got it, cowboy. Now get on your horse, and ride."

  As the horse galloped away in a cloud of dust, to disappear over the wooded rise, Kate thought, Dear God, what have I done now?

  Cody asked, "You want me to put the cow in the barn?"

  "Would you please?" Kate was suddenly bone weary.

  Cody picked up the wobbly calf, and carried it toward the barn. The cow followed along after him. "This cow won't be up to going anywhere for a day or two."

  "You sounded like your daddy, talking up to that boy that way." Belle's face was grim, but her eyes were laughing. "Yep, just like him, shooting off your mouth before you stopped to think about the consequences. What are you going to do now, Kate?"

  "Make supper, and do some thinking, maybe some repenting. Honestly, Mamma, I don't know what got into me. All that talk about Hank Sinclair seeing his lawyer made me think of some of Jim's underhanded double dealings. I saw red."

  "I think you did the right thing." Belle tugged at the screen door. "Are you going to have the guts to follow through?"

  Kate followed her mother inside. "You actually agree with something I did? I can't believe it."

  "Neither can I." Belle rummaged around, and found a clean shirt. "Let's make supper. I feel like I ate that Big Mac yesterday."

  Belle built a fire in the fireplace, mixed biscuits, put them in a Dutch oven, set the oven in the fireplace, and heaped coals around the pan. "Open a can of beans, Kate."

  "I didn't know you could cook biscuits in a fireplace." Kate watched her mother move about the room, with an economy of effort.

  "Now you know you can." Belle found four loose bricks beside the mantle. She fashioned them into a square rack in one corner of the fireplace. "I'll just scoot some coals under here." She used a pie pan to drop hot coals between the bricks. "And fry some bacon."

  Kate opened the beans, and set the can in the ashes to heat. "Should I make a salad. Mamma?"

  Belle wiped the end of her nose with the back of her hand, leaving a smudge of flour. "Sure, and open a can of fruit cocktail. Then set out our best paper plates. We have a guest for supper."

  Kate pushed the half-packed boxes to one side and set three paper plates on the table. Watching her mother turn the bacon in the frying pan, Kate thought that if she lived to be a hundred, she would still be discovering things about Belle. "Where did you learn to pull a calf, Mamma?"

  "Your daddy taught me." Belle crouched before the fireplace. "We couldn't afford a hired hand, so I helped with the outside chores."

  Cody came through the back door, lifted his head and sniffed the air. "I washed up at the windmill. Something smells powerful good."

  "It's bacon and biscuits," Belle said without looking up.

  Cody sat at the table. "Lordy, I do love homemade biscuits."

  Kate couldn't see her mother's face, but she knew Belle was smiling.

  Supper was a surprisingly pleasant meal. Cody regaled the two women with stories of his travels. Belle told about coming to live at Paradise all those long years ago. "I was a city person. I thought, if this is paradise, I sure hope I don't ever find myself in that other place."

  Cody helped himself to more fruit cocktail, pouring the last of the juice over his fruit. "Your husband was a lucky man to have you, Belle."

  "I was lucky to have him, too. He was a good man."

  "That's the nicest compliment a woman can pay a man." Cody's whiskers wiggled as he chewed.

  Those words bent Kate's mind toward an old memory. She recalled the Christmas Jim had dressed like Santa Claus and fooled Michael and Suzie. She had told Jim that night, what a good man he was, and he had smiled, and said, "That's quite a compliment." If Daddy had not died, would he have become disench
anted with Mamma somewhere along the way? Would he have found some one new to love, someone younger and prettier? Mamma was lucky. All her memories of Daddy were good ones. With that unhappy insight, Kate helped herself to more beans.

  Trying to decide what she would say to Hank Sinclair caused Kate to toss and turn before she fell asleep. But with the light of a new day, came the resolve to see this thing through. During the morning, as she unpacked and put things away, Kate listened for an approaching car. Or would Hank Sinclair arrive on horse back?

  By mid-morning Belle and Kate were beginning to make some semblance of order from the chaos of furniture, boxes, and clothing that cluttered the old house. "Maybe we can find this place by night." Belle turned a crate on its end, and sat down. "But for now, let's take a breather. I'll make some more coffee. You call Cody."

  When Kate called to him, Cody leaned the post hole digger against the house, and turned. "Coffee, did you say? Sounds good to me. Lady and I need a rest."

  Cody's whistle brought the magnificent animal beside him to her feet. "What kind of dog is she?" Kate asked.

  "German shepherd." Cody reached to stroke the neck of the dog beside him.

  "But she's white, " Kate protested.

  "You prejudiced against white German shepherds?"

  "I didn't know there was such a thing. I never saw a white German shepherd before. She's a splendid creature."

  "That's good to hear. Lady and I were beginning to worry." The stern words rode on a chuckle, causing Kate to move her eyes from the dog to Cody's amused face.

  "You're teasing me. May I pet her?"

  "I don't mind if Lady doesn't." Cody's fingers caressed the dog's ears. "Lady, say hello to Kate."

  Kate ran her hands through the incredibly thick fur around the dog's neck. "Hello, Lady."

  Lady studied Kate with intelligent eyes, then gave her tail a wag, and turned her head to one side.

  "Do I meet with her approval?" Kate fell in step with Cody as he walked toward the back door.

  The dog trotted at Cody's heels. "Why don't you ask her?"

  Just like Mamma, Cody insisted on asking a question to answer a question. Maybe that aggravating trait was endemic to their generation. "I don't speak German," Kate quipped.

  Cody's laughter echoed across the open spaces. "A girl with a sense of humor. That's downright refreshing."

  "I'm not a girl, Cody. I'm a woman." Kate waited for Cody to open the door.

  "What's the difference?" Cody held the screen for Kate.

  "Expectations." Lady brushed Kate's leg, as she went through the door.

  "Coffee," Belle called from the kitchen.

  By late afternoon, Kate began to worry. Hank Sinclair should have put in an appearance by now. Maybe he thought he didn't have to account for having his cows on Paradise. Maybe he was right. Was it possible that he had some claim on the ranch? Common sense told Kate no, but that little niggle of doubt wouldn't go away. "Why doesn't he show up?"

  From her reclining position on the couch, Belle asked, "Who?"

  "You know who, Mamma, Hank Sinclair."

  "Maybe he wants you to worry. Maybe..." Belle laid her paperback novel on the floor, and sat up. "Listen."

  The sound of a car pulling into the yard brought Kate to her feet. "Speak of the devil. He's here."

  A Chrysler New Yorker pulled to a halt in the yard by the porch. Kate raised an eyebrow. "Such an ostentatious vehicle. Hank Sinclair seems more the Ford pickup type."

  With grim irony Belle reminded her daughter, "This is not the first time you've been wrong about a man. Answer the door." Belle picked up her book and hurried from the room.

  Kate held on to the door jamb, and gawked. The man walking toward her was not Hank Sinclair, but York Taylor.

  "I knew it!" Under her breath, Kate swore. "Damn!" There must be some mistake about Mamma's account, and York had felt constrained to make this long trip to explain.

  York's demeanor emanated poise and control. "I was on my way home, and I decided to drop by, see how you were, and bid you welcome to the neighborhood."

  His sudden appearance was having a most unsettling effect on Kate. Her nervous fingers held the screen door open. "Won't you come in?"

  York removed his hat, and stood looking around the little room, taking in the pictures that lined the mantle, the crocheted afghan folded neatly across the back of the couch, Belle's rag throw rugs scattered about the floor. "It takes a woman's touch to make a house a home. The place looks very nice."

  Kate pushed her hair back from her face, and hoped she didn't look as nervous as she felt. "Sit down, won't you? Would you like a cup of coffee?"

  York folded his long body into the worn arm chair. "Nothing, thank you. As I was saying, I was on my way home, and I decided, on impulse, to stop."

  He didn't look like a man who had ever acted on impulse. "Home, Mr. Taylor? I didn't know you lived around here."

  "Please, Kate, call me York. I live on the spread north of you, the Triple T." He ran his long fingers across the crocheted doily on the arm of the chair. "Did you make this?"

  Kate perched on the couch edge. "No, Mamma did."

  "It is lovely." Some of York's confidence seemed to desert him. "My late wife, Carol, took up crocheting as therapy when she learned she had cancer." Lacing his fingers together, he studied them carefully. "She's been gone three years, and I still miss her."

  His sad declaration struck a responsive chord in Kate. "I'm sorry."

  York vaulted to his feet, strode across the room, and picked up one of the pictures on the mantle. "Your family?"

  "My children," Kate explained. "Suzie and Michael. They're much older than that now. Michael is married. Suzie's in college."

  "Carol and I never had any children." He set the frame back down on the mantle. "Do you think you will like living here? It's a far cry from Dallas."

  "Dallas wasn't so great." Kate said, remembering how difficult her last months there had been. "It was big and impersonal. I was glad to leave."

  "Sometimes the residents of a small town can be prying, and gossipy, which is almost as bad." York's words carried a veiled warning.

  "I suppose so." Kate was beginning to feel a little disturbed, and decidedly anxious.

  "Gossip spreads through St. Agnes like wildfire, once it starts."

  "I can imagine." This was not just a friendly, welcoming call. York had come here for some express purpose. "Is this a general warning, or have you heard something specific?"

  He slapped one hand against his leg. "How do I say this without sounding petty and provincial?"

  Kate's uneasiness was swallowed up in curiosity. "What are you trying to tell me?"

  His smile was self-effacing. "My secretary's sister works for St. Agnes's resident attorney. She called Nora, my secretary, this morning to say that Hank Sinclair had called her boss earlier, saying that his father had made extensive improvements on the property here. He was asking about getting some kind of lien on Paradise, or bringing suit against you."

  "I know. Hank's hired hand told me the same thing yesterday." Tension tightened in Kate's stomach. The last thing she needed now was someone threatening her with a lawsuit.

  York didn't help matters any when he said, "If it had involved anyone but Hank Sinclair, I might have dismissed the whole nasty incident as gossip, but Sinclair can be ruthless."

  Before prudence could dictate caution, Kate asked, "Don't you like Mr. Sinclair?"

  "I hate him, and not without reason. He can't be trusted. The thought came to me that he might try to take advantage of you." The man actually blushed when he realized the connotation his words carried. "With some shady business deal, I mean. I felt I should warn you."

  Kate's feelings of gratitude were tempered with doubt. Why should York Taylor care what Hank Sinclair did to her? "I appreciate your concern."

  "I must be on my way." York reached for the screen door handle, then turned to face Kate. "If you do decide to sell Paradise, Kate, I'
d like the opportunity to buy it from you."

  "I'm not going to sell Paradise." It wasn't Kate York was concerned about, it was Paradise Ranch.

  "Sinclair will be unhappy to hear that." York stood very still, his hand on the screen handle, his back stiff and tense. "If, at any time, I can be of assistance to you, don't hesitate to call me."

  Before Kate could find an answer to that, a pickup truck pulled into the yard, and stopped beside the Chrysler. Hank Sinclair stepped from the truck, strode across the yard, and pulled on the screen door. "I need to talk to you, Kate McClure."

  He would have yanked the door open if York had not held on to the handle. When he realized who was on the other side of the screen, Hank's mouth shaped into a nasty little grin. "Well, well, if it isn't Saint Agnes's most prominent citizen. What are you doing here?"

  Kate's temper flared. Hank had a nerve, greeting her guest with such rudeness. "Mr. Taylor is my guest, Mr. Sinclair. He is here at my invitation." The lie rolled off her tongue with appalling ease.

  York stepped aside, and without waiting for an invitation, Hank came through the door. "You and I have business to discuss."

  Ignoring his outburst, Kate spoke to York. "Thank you for coming by. I appreciate your concern."

  "I'll give you a call soon." York nodded in Hank's direction. "See you around, Sinclair."

  "Yeah, sure."

  Over the roar of the Chrysler's powerful motor, Hank demanded. "What was he doing here?"

  "He came..." Kate stopped. She owed Hank no explanation. "It was a social call." Why had she lied? Why hadn't she told Hank to mind his own business?

  Caustically, Hank intoned, "I'll bet."

  "Why don't you sit down?" Kate extended her hand in the direction of the couch. "Your cow and calf are in the barn. I didn't really intend to keep them."

  Midway across the room Hank stopped. "This is not about that damn cow." He spun on his heel and glared at her. "Why don't we cut all this crap, and get down to business?"

  "You don't have to be rude."

  "I'm not being rude!"

  "You're shouting," Kate reminded him.

  Hank's voice dropped. "I'm not shouting."

  "Would you like to sit down?" A little thread of fear laced itself up Kate's backbone. "We can work this out." She didn't want, couldn't afford, a lawsuit.